(from Healthcare Informatics, October 26, 2016 )
Health systems focus on data integration, decision support, clinical work flow
by David Raths
When the American Society of Clinical Oncology surveyed its members to ask what they got when they order a cancer gene panel from a lab, approximately 50 percent said the lab faxes over a PDF or sends a PDF file as an attachment. Only 22 percent said the lab can send the results as discrete data and that their EHR can store it.
The average genomic report is 30 pages long and dense, noted Jeremy Warner, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Integrating genomics into clinical workflow is a step into unknown territory, he added. Health systems have to make sure the report is not interruptive of the patient-doctor relationship. “I can’t imagine reading a 30-page PDF in front of a patient in the office,” said Warner, who was speaking at an Oct. 26 HL7 meeting on the future of cancer genomics, interoperability and precision patient care.
Read the complete story at Healthcare Informatics.